-PTI The United Nations has warned that the world is on the brink of another recession, projecting that global economic growth will slow down further in 2012 and even emerging powerhouses like India and China, which led the recovery last time, will get bogged down. The UN 'World Economic Situation and Prospects 2012' report has cut the global growth forecast for next year to 2.6 per cent from 4 per cent in...
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Grim predictions by G Srinivasan
India ranks a dismal 134 among 187 countries in terms of human development index in the UNDP's latest Human Development Report. Against this bleak backdrop, the bugle of caution is rightly sounded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its latest Human Development Report (HDR), released in Copenhagen on November 2 jointly by Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark. As the international community is busy preparing...
More »Aids-related deaths 'down 21% from peak', says UNAids
-BBC Aids-related deaths are at the lowest level since their 2005 peak, down 21%, figures from UNAids suggest. Globally, the number of new HIV infections in 2010 was 21% down on that peak, seen in 1997, according to UNAids 2011 report. The organisation says both falls have been fuelled by a major expansion in access to treatment. Its executive director, Michel Sidibe, said: "We are on the verge of a significant breakthrough." He added: "Even...
More »What’s Wrong and Right with Microfinance by David Hulme and Thankom Arun
Recent events in south Asia have led to an unexpected reversal in the narrative of microfinance, long presented as a development success. Despite charges of poor treatment of clients, exaggeration of the impact on the poorest as well as the risks of credit bubbles, the sector can play a non-negligible role in reaching financial services to low-income households. In regulating the sector, there is need for caution in setting interest...
More »Reviving Universal PDS: A Step Towards Food Security by Suranjita Ray
An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...
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